“Deeply shocked”, China said it “strongly condemns the inconsiderate use of force by the United States against a sovereign state and the actions directed against the president of another country”. Denouncing “a serious transgression” of international law, “a violation of Venezuela‘s sovereignty” and “a threat to peace and security in Latin America”, she urged Washington to respect its obligations, particularly those arising from the United Nations charter.
However vehement the indignation may be in Beijing, it is unlikely to lead to concrete measures. Although Venezuela has become an important economic partner for China, it does not constitute a strategic issue justifying a more aggressive posture towards the United States. Oil, which we talk about a lot, undoubtedly weighs heavily, but much more for Caracas than for Beijing. If, over the last three years, China purchased, via intermediaries to more or less discreetly circumvent the embargo decreed in Washington, from 60 to 80% of Venezuelan crude exports, this never represented more than 4% of Chinese oil imports.
In the streets of Caracas, uncertainty dominates: “People have been waiting for this day for almost 30 years”
Numerous contacts at the highest level
That being said, the American coup is nevertheless a setback to Chinese strategy in Latin America, of which Venezuela was a centerpiece. Reflecting the proximity established between the two countries, there have been numerous exchanges of official visits. At the highest level alone, Chavez has visited China six times during his presidency and Maduro has been there five times – the last in September 2023. On the Chinese side, Jiang Zemin was welcomed to Caracas in 2001, his successor Hu Jintao in 2013, and Xi Jinping in 2014 (after a first visit in 2009 when he was vice president). Xi and Maduro met again in Moscow on May 9, during the celebrations of the 80th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany.
Taking advantage of the disengagement of the United States, then obsessed with the Middle East after the attacks of September 11, 2001, China launched a massive offensive in Latin America. Almost non-existent in 2000 (they totaled barely 12 billion dollars), its trade with this region of the world now exceeds 500 billion – with a surplus of more than 100 billion for the benefit of Beijing. China has become South America’s first partner and Central America’s second (after the United States). Over the last quarter of a century, Beijing has invested an average of $8 billion per year.
American intervention in Venezuela: the first implementation of the Trump doctrine
Left-wing oasis on a right-wing continent
For communist China, the advent of a left-wing regime in Caracas in the late 1990s made Venezuela a sacred island in what was then a sea of right-wing regimes and neoliberal economies. More than 400 cooperation agreements have been concluded between the two countries. Their bilateral trade increased a hundredfold in twenty years, while Chinese banks lent a total of more than $67 billion to Caracas – half of all Chinese loans to Latin America and more than China has ever made to any other country.
This also means that Venezuela has become heavily indebted, like most of the countries which, like it, participate in the New Silk Roads, this global initiative by Xi Jinping to increase trade with China and strengthen its influence. This also means that the country, which moved closer to China to escape pressure from the United States, has finally replaced its old dependence with a new one.
“It’s the law of the jungle”: hundreds of demonstrators denounce American action against Venezuela in Brussels (PHOTOS)
Strategic partners, but without security guarantees
Without benefiting from protection, as recent events remind us. Both parties celebrated the progress of their complicity with words. We thus moved from a “strategic partnership” to a “complete strategic partnership” and finally, on the occasion of Maduro’s final visit to Beijing, to an “ironclad strategic partnership”. Except the test of force, however, because the agreements concluded between China and Venezuela do not include any security guarantee.
Hugo Chavez could have predicted this. Entering Mao’s mausoleum on Tian’anmen Square during his trip to Beijing in 1999, he confided to his hosts that he had “been a Maoist all his life.” He actually liked to pepper his speeches with quotes from the famous Little Red Book. It is curious that he apparently did not retain this one, for his use as for that of his successor: “Power is at the end of the gun.”
